Originally Posted by
Captain Schmidt
I've been told the same story of dodgy person/same name, as have a number of others here. I recently went to Dublin where my passport also didn't work in the e-gates - Irish immigration officer told me it was a faulty chip. I'm pretty confident that there is no-one else in the UK (or world for that matter) with the same combination of first, middle and last name as me so I know which of the two I'm more inclined to believe.
When the guy quoted the name that came up it wasn't a match, it was actually the first letter of my surname and then the rest of my first name - the point being the AI/algorithm was unable to make a determination (think he said it times out) so defaults to rejecting it and requiring a physical/human check. If the chip is faulty it surely wouldn't work in Rome, Geneva, Brisbane etc. Another way of looking at it, the software is crap/risk averse :-)